t eanc 0 VOL. 38, NO. 33
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FALL RIVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER FOR SOUTHEAST MASSACHUSETTS CAPE COD &. THE ISLANDS
FALL RIVER, MASS.
Friday, August 26,1994
Southeastern Massachusetts' Largest Weekly
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$11 Per Year
Despite dangers, pope plans Sarajevo visit
t Sr. Dolores Pavuo. SS.C'c,. phOIO
EAGER TO BEGIN altar service at St. Joseph's parish, Fairhaven,are, from left, Jessica Oliveira, Neal Bizarro and Karen Whitehead, among youngsters attending a recent training program at the parish. :
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CHA officials meet with Clintons WASHINGTON (CNS) - President Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton met with eight top officials of the Catholic Health Association last week to discuss health policy reform. Issues they discussed included their shared goal of universal health coverage and the CHA's opposition to the administration goal of mandated abortion coverage. In a letter to association members, CH A president John E. Curley J r. said the 50-minute private meeting at the White House came at the Clintons' request. Curley said the Clintons told association officials that they are using a recent CHA-sponsored study and CHA charts in meetings with members of Congress to show that a package of partial reforms which stops short of universal coverage will significantly increase costs for alreadyinsured middle-class Americans instead of decreasing them. The study, conducted for CHA by health care pollsters Lewin-VHllnc., was released in mid-July. It showed universal coverage would lower health costs for nearly all currently insured Americans, while a package \vith about 90 percent coverage would increase costs for most. "The president told us that the 'best thing that has happened on health care reform in the last two months' is the CHALewin-VHI study," Curley wrote.
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He said the meeting also included "a frank discussion about CHA's strong moral objection to including abortion in health care reform and our concern that including abortion in the benefit package of any health care reform bill would doom it to certain failure." "Consistent with our position throughout the reform debate, CHA would be forced to oppose health care reform legislation if this objection is not addressed satisfactorily," Curley added. Apart from the abortion issue, CHA has been among the strongest backers of health care reform goals of the Clinton administration. Many of the CHA's own reform proposals were mirrored in the package recommended by the task force headed by Mrs. Clinton. Curley said the Clintons "are well aware of CHA's activities and were very complimentary to the association," which represents some 700 Catholic health care instituti¢ns, the largest group of private health providers in the country. The White House meeting came as the Senate was in its first stages of floor debate on a health care reform bill sponsored by Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine. In the House of Representatives, a bill sponsored by House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, DMo., had not yet reached the floor and was not expected to do so until after Labor Oay.
COGNE, Italy (CNS) - Pope John Paul II is firm in his desire to visit the Serb-b.esieged Bosnian capital of Sarajevo despite warnings from Bosnian Serb and Serbian Orthodox leaders that his life would be in danger. "The desire of the pope to visit Sarajevo is irrevocable," said papal spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls. The Vatican is weighing the situation and is awaiting a decision by U. N. military commanders whether a plane carrying the pope on Sept. 8 will be able to safely land and take off several hours later, he said. The pope will visit Zagreb, Croatia, Sept. 11-12. Navarro-Valls spoke on Sunday in the northern Italian alpine city of Cogne while the pope was celebrating an outdoor Mass during a brief vacation. The spokesman's reiteration of the pope's strong wish to make the trip came after Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and Serbian Orthodox Metropolitan Jovan said the pope risks death if he goes to Sarajevo. Karadzic said Serbs oppose the trip because the pope's safety cannot be guaranteed. The main threat would come from the Muslim-led Bosnian troops who would try to blame the Serbs for the attack, he said. "The Muslims can shoot him down and abuse the Serbs. That would be terrible for the Catholic world," added Karadzic. Serbian Orthodox Metropolitan Jovan told Italian television that "the risk is great" to the pope. "An accident could represent a nightmare," he said, mentioning several recent bombings of public places that caused numerous deaths. A tentative Vatican schedule of papal events lists a Mass at a sports stadium. "The Serbian Orthodox Church is not opposed to his trip," said Metropolitan Jovan, head of Serbian Orthodox in Croatia, Slovenia and Italy. But if the pope's visit is to be "a mission of peace," the pope must "condemn all those responsible for crimes committed during this war," he said. Serbian political and religious leaders often have said that the Vatican supports the mostly Catholic Croats in the fighting in the former Yugoslavia. In Bosnia, Croats are in a loose alliance with the Muslim-led government. "It will not be the pope's leg that prevents him from visiting the Bosnian capital," Navarro-Valls said, referring to the pope's recent operation to repair a broken thigh bone. While the pope was on vacation, the Vatican listed a preliminary schedule for the pope's Sarajevo trip. Plans call for the pope to celebrate Mass in a sports stadium and meet the Catholic bishops and other religious leaders.
The Aug. 19 Vatican schedule also lists a meeting with President Alija Izetbegovic, head of the Muslim-led government of Bosnia-Herzegovina. According to the schedule, the pope would arrive by airplane from Rome at 10:30 a.m. and leave for Rome at 7 p.m. Vatican trip organizers said that the basic decision to open or close the Sarajevo . airport to the papal flight will be made by U.N. commanders, since the airport is in a U.N.-controlled zone. A decision may not be made until the night before the trip, said papal organizers. Once the pope leaves the airport, security would be the joint responsibility of V.N. troops and the Bosnian government, they said. Security for the pope, the people accompanying him and the people attending his public events is also a key worry of local organizers, said Auxiliary Bishop Pero Sudar of Sarajevo. The bishops said the Serbs would be the main threat. The pope's safety hinges on a security agreement between U. N. commanders and Bosnian Serb leaders, he said. Bosnian Serb leaders "can say 'no' and it would be a decisive 'no,'" he said in an interview in the Italian Catholic newspaper, Avvenire. Without Serb approval "not even a plane with humanitarian aid can land in our airport," he said. Bishop Sudar said that V.N. commanders "are not in a position to guarantee anything" and are trying to set up talks with Serb leaders. who fear their enemies "want to attribute a partisan political significance" to the papal trip. The pope's intentions are "spiritual and ecumenical" and Serbs living in Sarajevo "are not against the visit," he said. The papal trip is supported by Muslim leaders, and the city's two Serbian Orthodox priests are "surely in agreement on the important spiritual significance of the . visit," Bishop Sudar said. "There is joy and enthusiasm among Catholics," and "the majority of the population prays so that the miracle will happen," he said. If the pope comes, he will see a city "which looks like a concentration camp," he said. Planning for the papal trip involves finding a church or another place where several thousand people can gather and "are not exposed to the danger of an attacker," he said. A plaza or an open field would be "too risky," he said. "We must avoid any temptation for sniper fanatics," he added. The bishop said that a maximum of 6,000 people could attend a papal event given security problems.
In This I s s u e - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ,
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Prayer Saved Priest From Kidnapper Page 12